whose proper force is brought out by Ramanuja’s explanation only.  So much is certain that none of the Sutras decidedly favours the interpretation proposed by Sa@nkara.  Whichever commentator we follow, we greatly miss coherence and strictness of reasoning, and it is thus by no means improbable that the section is one of those—­perhaps not few in number—­in which both interpreters had less regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition than to their desire of forcing Badaraya/n/a’s Sutras to bear testimony to the truth of their own philosophic theories.

With special reference to the Maya doctrine one important Sutra has yet to be considered, the only one in which the term ‘maya’ itself occurs, viz.  III, 2, 3.  According to Sa@nkara the Sutra signifies that the environments of the dreaming soul are not real but mere Maya, i.e. unsubstantial illusion, because they do not fully manifest the character of real objects.  Ramanuja (as we have seen in the conspectus) gives a different explanation of the term ‘maya,’ but in judging of Sa@nkara’s views we may for the time accept Sa@nkara’s own interpretation.  Now, from the latter it clearly follows that if the objects seen in dreams are to be called Maya, i.e. illusion, because not evincing the characteristics of reality, the objective world surrounding the waking soul must not be called Maya.  But that the world perceived by waking men is Maya, even in a higher sense than the world presented to the dreaming consciousness, is an undoubted tenet of the Sa@nkara Vedanta; and the Sutra therefore proves either that Badaraya/n/a did not hold the doctrine of the illusory character of the world, or else that, if after all he did hold that doctrine, he used the term ‘maya’ in a sense altogether different from that in which Sa@nkara employs it.—­If, on the other hand, we, with Ramanuja, understand the word ‘maya’ to denote a wonderful thing, the Sutra of course has no bearing whatever on the doctrine of Maya in its later technical sense.

We now turn to the question as to the relation of the individual soul to Brahman.  Do the Sutras indicate anywhere that their author held Sa@nkara’s doctrine, according to which the jiva is in reality identical with Brahman, and separated from it, as it were, only by a false surmise due to avidya, or do they rather favour the view that the souls, although they have sprung from Brahman, and constitute elements of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual existence apart from it?  This question is in fact only another aspect of the Maya question, but yet requires a short separate treatment.